Who Will Watch Me Die
by TrickyFrog
Summary: This is a collection of three one-shots based on a central theme. Pairings in order of chapters- GlennxJack, BreakxSharon, and AlicexOzxGil. Please R&R. Third chapter up. Complete.
1. What Glenn Said

This "fic" is actually a series of three one-shots based on an idea presented in the Death Cab for Cutie song "What Sarah Said". (Yeah, I know, Death Cab. . . . . Still, you can not deny their poetic talents. 3) I highly recommend you hear the song, especially before or after reading these. The first is Jack x Glenn, then Break x Sharon, and finally, Alice x Oz x Gilbert. As always, please R & R, and oh-I don't own stuff.

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He turned his body over carefully too scared to know the truth even if it had to be done and he had to be the one to do it; that didn't mean he wanted to, that he'd be happy to, that he wouldn't regret it the rest of his short life and on into death. On his knees he moved the taller man's back onto his lap, holding him up in his right arm so that their eyes could meet without effort.

Those dark eyes were hiding behind heavy defeated eyelids, but the blonde knew better than to believe him dead. His bloodied chest was still rising and falling, blood like oil still coming up from the wound escaping out into the open air to be stared at in wonder, a beautiful red. The eyes opened and landed directly on the other's green ones, the last thing they would see.

"You killed me." The words themselves were weapons and the past tense was the mark of defeat, distance, a soul traveling further away even before its time.

_It's done. I killed him . . . . my best friend. He won't survive this. Glenn is going to die and I've killed him._ Jack lifted his left hand up to see the sticky substance that marked him murderer. He shut his eyes tightly, both arms moving Glenn closer to him, embracing him_. I've killed you, Glenn. I did this . . . to you._ He felt that same red oil on his face and in shock his eyes opened to see Glenn's own, now inches from him.

"If your eyes are closed, who will watch me die?" His expression was mute and accepting, and his words were soft and painless. His hand fell from Jack's face leaving behind another mark to label him of his sin. Glenn was vulnerable, something Jack was unfamiliar with from his best friend.

Jack pulled away, staring, as he registered the meaning of those words. It had been some time ago. The Vessalius had visited her grave daily at first, always inviting his friend to join him and Glenn always declining. He thought it was grief at first, just the way Glenn dealt with the deaths of those he loved, but the weeks became months and Jack wondered if the Baskerville was perhaps in denial, like seeing the tombstone meant recognizing the fact that she was dead and never coming back.

Lacie.

They were sitting together under a tall tree that provided just enough shade for the two of them just after afternoon tea. The blonde had his head on Glenn's shoulder, his eyes half-lidded, nearly asleep.

"Glenn, why don't you come with me this time? You . . . you haven't been yourself in a while." _Really, since Lacie's death . . . _It had been bothering the music box maker and in disjointed thoughts just before sleep takes you, he had said it without thinking clearly.

"You know I was there, Jack."

He did, but he didn't understand what Glenn was getting at. There was a quiet silence, not entirely uncomfortable. The wind moved the leaves of the tree above, a few fluttering down to fall around them. When it passed, Glenn spoke, clearly, intentionally.

"Love is watching someone die. She doesn't need me there now."

Jack was speechless. The answer was enough because it was something Jack himself couldn't understand. It was something beyond his experience-until now.

Now, holding Glenn upright in his arms as the red continued to steal his body and life away, Jack finally understood. Emerald eyes met the darkest sapphire and looked into and through them. Glenn was giving him permission to see inside of him, to look upon his very core, and Jack felt like those small circles were portals taking him and showing him everything he previously knew nothing of and explaining to him the things he hadn't understood before.

"I love you, Glenn." Jack's eyes had grown wide as if overwhelmed by the flood of knowledge and emotion that they were experiencing as their line of vision became limited to the world that shown through Glenn's eyes. He could not look away from them for anything, not even as the building around them burned, the leftovers of the Baskervilles own destruction threatening to swallow their maker.

"I know . . . Jack." A hundred truths hit him and his head reeled with thoughts as his heart beat faster, new emotions he only held subconsciously until now surfacing. A loud voice inside his mind pleaded with him desperately to save Glenn's life, but it was the voice of irrationality and desperation, one that Jack recognized and so, ignored it.

All Jack did was stare; his eyes beholding his best friend's in his last moments. Everything was there inside them and Jack felt tears fall from his eyes as he realized that with his final discovery of beauty without doubt he himself had been the one to extinguish it. Visions of a life that would never happen reflected into the minds eye of each of them. Jack was drawn in by them, fantasies of a beauty within the absence of distrust or fear; something that had they really looked into each other's eyes like this before-before all of this happened, they would have been able to achieve. His eyes softened, no longer in shock, but rather in deep longing, gazing at the other's.

In that moment Jack had fallen in love.

He kissed Glenn softly on the lips and felt the kiss returned. Their eyes returned to each other and all the words that need not be spoken were communicated through them. In the hopelessness of that moment Jack had found something beautiful, and then, lost it.

Death came and the eyes held nothing. Finally, Jack broke himself away from the now empty and lifeless orbs holding Glenn's body ever closer as he cried, the world continuing to burn around him. In those last moments Jack had shared a lifetime with his best friend, a love that could only be recognized through loss.

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Next chapter is Break x Sharon. Please give it a go. 3 . . . *blush* . . . And thank you all for your support, both on this and my previous writings.


	2. What Sharon Said

I'm not used to writing these characters, especially Sharon, so please pardon me if it is ooc.

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Sharon replaced the towel with a new one, ensuring that the new one was cool and damp on his forehead.

"You don't need to be doing this, Miss Sharon." She had been taking care of him for two days now. It was just a cold, but since his time was short, it was affecting him more than it ever had before. His immune system had been a wreck recently, and the seal had been causing him more pain than usual. His days were growing even shorter.

"And why not?" She smiled as she said this, already decided that she knew where this was going.

"You know I don't have much time left." His single eye didn't look at her, but stared out the window at the empty sky instead, in some way ashamed.

"Of course, I'm well aware of that Xerxes, more than anyone else. I see you. In the morning when you wake up you can barely walk. During the day you spend most of your time sitting unless otherwise needed. At night when the air is humid you go into coughing fits. You're always washing your hands of blood. You're always squinting in pain. You're always hiding, but I see you . . . . Xerxes." She smiled warmly with her whole body, her arms and hands comforting him even in their distance.

"My Lady . . ."His single eye was wide. Really, he should have been more careful. Likely, due to his own carelessness, she had seen him this way and it had caused her to worry. "I'm sorry if I made you worry."

" . . . Love is watching someone die."

His eye went wider and was met with her smiling face, as beautiful as it had always been, or was it more beautiful now? Xerxes looked at Sharon, taking in the way her dress fit the curves of her body, and the way her hair swept across her neck as she moved her head to the side, curious as he stared.

" . . . ." He wanted to say something. Something heroic. Something funny. Something Sharon would want to hear. Something. Anything. Nothing.

"I wouldn't trade these days with you Xerxes, for anything." She lifted the towel to feel his head and replaced it with her palm, using his temperature as an excuse to make physical contact with him.

He saw Shelly in that moment, radiant and strong, with a wise and boundless love that took his breath away. But Shelly was gone, and had been for some time. It was Sharon that was looking at him like that, and behind her eyes, was something even deeper.

"_Love is watching someone die."_ The words repeated again in his mind, but this time that single word stuck out_. Love?_ Is that what he was finally seeing there in those eyes? After all of this time? She noticed the processing behind his eyes and pulled away, putting the towel back.

Reading his eye, she realized then that he understood. Blushing, she stood up and excused herself, "I really should let you rest. The fever is coming down. You should be feeling better in the morning." When she turned to leave Break reached out and grabbed her arm, preventing her escape.

She turned back around, startled and blushing even more when she saw that his sudden movement had caused the blanket from falling off of him, exposing his bare chest with the full seal. As soon as she saw this, she looked away again. _He doesn't see me as a woman. He sees me only as a girl, as my mother's daughter! I shouldn't look at him like that._

"Sharon," the formality was dropped from the intimacy of the moment, "Sharon, you've been carrying this weight for how long?" He saw the way her eyes trailed his body, and he wondered why he'd only now realized. Had they always been watching him that way?

She pulled away but to her surprise his grip tightened. "Let me go, Xerxes!" She felt herself growing weaker, her emotions running wild and uncensored all because she had been found out.

Break did as was commanded of him. He wouldn't keep Sharon there against her will, even if he thought she needed to stay. He swallowed his pride and spoke before she could leave, "Please don't leave. I-" _I what? I what? I what? What do I want to say? What can I say?_ "I-I'm sorry I never realized."

Sharon was more than upset, but at his apology, she felt defeated. She didn't want an apology. A few tears finally made their way through. She had studied all the tactics women like Elizabeth Bennet used to keep themselves in check in the face of the one they loved. She had read over and over all the circumstances in which a woman finally confessed her feelings, but she was still doing it all wrong. She was weak. In the face of him, she was weak.

"It doesn't matter, Break." He swallowed when she used that name, rather than his first. Was she distancing herself again? "You only see me as 'Shelly's daughter'." She covered her mouth with her hand, and shut her eyes tight. That was it. She had said it. She had been selfish and weak and now she would pay for it. _Xerxes doesn't need this. Not right now. I can't believe I-_

"That's not true." His voice interrupted her thoughts.

She dared to look at him again, tears now freely falling from her eyes. Before she could move away, however, he had sat up and leaned closer to her, his left hand cupping the side of her head and his lips meeting hers briefly, too scared of denial to stay a moment longer. "That was always just my excuse."

Sharon's lips parted to speak but nothing came out, her eyes locked on Break's single claret one. In that brief kiss he had recognized her finally.

"Xerxes . . ." She closed her eyes and he kissed her again, deeper this time, speaking to her what words could not convey on their own. It may not have gone the way the novels said it would, but it ended far more real and beautiful than any of their happy endings.

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Thanks for reading! I will have the third chapter, which is between Alice, Oz, and Gilbert, up soon! 3


	3. What Oz Said

This is the third and last chapter. Thanks to some friends who really wanted a continuation, there is an extended version with adult content in the works. I will be uploading it shortly under the title "Eleven-o-clock". Thanks for reading these and please review. I eat reviews for dinner, and I am hungry. *heart*

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The clock struck eleven.

He had been dreaming, but what about was lost to him as he screamed aloud so that his neck stretched and his muscles strained, and as far as his body reached out in all directions was equal to how he retracted back into a ball on his bed, the pain pulsing throughout his body like a flow of high voltage electricity. He tried to hold them in, but the shameful tears escaped and continued to flow sideways out his eyes, wetting his left ear and the sheets below him. He prayed silently to pass out from the pain, to fall back asleep, to die, anything-anything to escape from this pain. If this wasn't the end, he couldn't even begin to imagine what twelve-o-clock would feel like.

Alice had arrived first, the room given to her in the Rainsworth estate closer to Oz's own than Gilbert's.

"Oz!" Alice, in her just above the knee length nightgown that Sharon had given her, jumped onto the bed and tried to pull Oz out of his huddle. "Oz!" She was scared, more scared than she ever had been, at least that she could remember clearly. She didn't want to see Oz like this. He looked small somehow, curled up like that, and the truth behind it all hurt her even more. She fumbled clumsily, her soft white nightgown sliding against the sheets of the bed until she made it to Oz.

It was less than a minute that Gilbert arrived as well.

Gilbert rushed in as she tried to pull Oz towards her, seeing him bat away at her through all of the pain. "What are you doing?!" His anger flared irrationally. He knew the reason Oz had screamed was because of the seal, but his hate for Alice was too strong and was often times manipulating his rationality. Gilbert was on her in a second, pulling her left arm back away from his master. "Stupid rabbit, this is _your fault_!"

"Shut up! It's not like I want this to happen to Oz!" Her violet eyes were shining, wet with un-shed tears. She felt helpless.

"You're the chain that signed the contract with him! You're the one who is killing him!" Gil's golden eyes were fierce. He was equally as helpless as Alice, but chose to deal with it differently and that was by placing blame.

Water spilled from her eyes, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" She knew what he said was the truth, but that didn't make it hurt any less. He didn't know what it felt like-for your own _existence_ to mean the death of the one you cherished most.

"I should kill you right now! Then Oz won't have to suffer anymore!" Gilbert pulled her away from Oz easily by the arm, threateningly careless with the way he twisted her arm back.

"S-stop . . . both of you" Oz winced again, biting down hard on his bottom lip as the pain continued to reverberate throughout his body, " . . . please stop fighting." Gilbert let go instantly, realizing his behavior, the flame in his eyes out. By hurting Alice he was indirectly hurting Oz. He crossed his arms and looked away, ashamed. Gilbert didn't know what else to do. All of the answers simply lead from one logical decision to the next. Oz was in pain. Why was he in pain? The seal. Why was the seal there? Alice. Who was causing him pain? Alice. It was simple, but Oz wouldn't see it that way. Oz somehow saw past that, but Gil could not.

They both looked at him, shameful that they would rather fight than actually help him, not that there was much either of them could do especially since Gil knew Oz would never forgive him if he ever hurt Alice.

His voice was soft, "Oz, there is no other way. Don't you see that? This is it."

Alice looked at Oz, then Gil, then back to Oz again, "Oz . . . ."

"Don't even say it Alice."

"-but Oz, he's right." Alice looked into Oz's eyes only, finding herself scared to face the other man. She looked scared, but whether for herself or himself, Oz couldn't tell.

The pain began to subside, leaving behind a soreness throughout his muscles and a headache that still brought a few stray tears to his eyes. It wasn't like he hadn't thought of it. How could he escape it? The truth was tattooed on his chest. Both of them were saying just as he thought they would, but they were missing it all entirely. Oz was quiet for a moment, sitting up straight, tired and weak.

"Alice." He took her right hand in his, and looked directly into those eyes he often found himself losing his thoughts to. The Vessalius noticed the blushing in her cheeks and smiled weakly.

He turned to Gilbert, taking his right hand, their fingers intertwining, "Gil." Gilbert's golden eyes had always been transparent in front of his master's, and now was no different. He was worried, scared, angry, and desperate, but his expression softened when his eyes met Oz's tired ones.

"Oz?"

He pulled each of them closer to himself by their hands, Gilbert also getting onto the large bed to obey his master's will. They sat there for a moment. Oz looked at the sheets, so Gilbert and Alice occupied their eyes with each other. The guilt was quiet but heavy between the two of them, and as they stared into each other's eyes, granting permission to read their own thoughts, both Alice and Gilbert found the truth they always questioned. They shared the same love, both in meaning and in weight. Gilbert had no reason to distrust Alice, and Alice knew that if Gilbert wanted anything, it would be only because he believed it would be in the best interest of Oz. If they both loved him, then they shared a common goal.

Gil was the first to speak, "Oz, I-" He felt Oz's grip become tighter, the bones in their fingers meeting through skin. He was silenced.

Oz pulled his hands close to his chest, bringing Alice's face inches from his own and Gilbert's not far behind. Each of them could feel the warmth the other emitted, and, though a little uncomfortable, Alice and Gil remained silent, each of them knowing that no matter what it meant to make Oz happy, they would do it.

"Love is watching someone die."

They looked at Oz and saw what they most feared- acceptance.

"Oz, you can't ask us to do that." Gilbert pulled away slightly so that he could look directly at his master, "You can't."

Alice held tightly to his hand, her other hand grabbing for his arm, "Oz, I won't go back there so that I can be alone again. I won't go back there to live without you!"

Oz let go of Gilbert's hand and Gil unwillingly obliged. "Alice, you aren't going to the Abyss, I promise." His right hand wiped at her tears as her eyes grew wide. "You said you felt more human, right? I wouldn't leave you if it meant you'd be alone."

Alice was shocked. That couldn't be true. How could Oz just _know_ something like that?

"That-how . . ."

"Trust me."

Oz let go of Alice's hand as well, but then did something neither of them expected. He put their hands together. Both of them looked equally confused as their hands met, Alice's inside of Gilbert's much larger hand, and both of Oz's on top of Gil's.

"If you truly love me, then you two must promise to live happy lives." His eyes were fixed on their hands, "I really can't ask for anything more." He rested his forehead on top of his hands and was quiet. The pain was nearly gone now.

Gilbert wanted to comfort Oz, but could only move his own head down, touching Oz's hair. Alice did the same, causing a sort of triangle to form between the three of them. Oz's words fell down from his mouth like he was speaking into the bed, "Promise me."

They could all feel Alice's tears, "I promise."

" . . . Gil?"

" . . . . . . I promise."

Oz pulled up, let go, and relaxed back into the bed, smiling, "Good! Now I can relax." He stretched and yawned. "I can relax knowing the two people I love the most will take care of each other after I'm gone."

Gilbert and Alice looked up at each other, Gilbert's hand still enveloping Alice's. Gilbert was about to glare when he noticed how red her face was from crying, her cheeks still wet with tears.

"I don't need any help from him! He's just a useless seaweed head!"

Gil dropped her hand, "Stupid rabbit! I never offered you anything!" Somehow the subtext behind their insults was missing now.

The laughter between them caused them to stop and look down at the one beneath them on the bed. Oz was laughing, entirely relieved.

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Fin


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